Modern healthcare providers are learning that true healthcare involves much more than perfunctory attention to physical ailments. The best care embraces the full spectrum of needs of a patient. A patient that is comfortable with attention and treatment is indeed likely to benefit from participation in preventive practices and regularly scheduled appointments for care. Indeed, preventive medicine is thought to be a key to the future in lowering healthcare costs and in improving quality of life.
A distraction from what may otherwise be an uncomfortable or awkward procedure can help a patient relax and can thereby reduce both physical and mental stress and increase the tolerance of the patient during a lengthy procedure. If improvements to the full experience of the patient can be achieved, then the patient is more likely to pursue elective care services. This may be of particular importance in, for example, the oral care industry where dentists have suffered since the conception of their craft against a reputation for providing needed but often uncomfortable services to patients.
Even routine healthcare services such as oral hygiene procedures can provide a less than optimal patient experience. Patients are typically at least bored while receiving such care. The overall experience of the patient could be substantially improved by some convenient arrangement for entertainment.
In addressing the need for patient distractions, many dentists now incorporate into the provision of healthcare the presentation of audio and/or video content to patients while the patients are receiving healthcare services. In this regard, computer monitors and televisions, headphones, and even virtual reality goggles are provided in order to provide patient distraction from dental procedures. The monitors and televisions are incorporated into the dental treatment rooms by positioning them into or on top of cabinets in the treatment rooms, or mounting them on arms attached to dental chairs. The view of these monitors and televisions provided to the patient, however, is less than optimal, as many dental procedures require the patient to be fully reclined in the dental chair. Headphones also inhibit effective communication between the patient and provider of the healthcare service during the procedure. Virtual reality goggles may be similarly obstructive and are not comfortable to some patients who experience claustrophobia.
Accordingly, a need continues to exist for improvements in the provision of healthcare and, especially, dental healthcare. This, and other needs, are addressed by one or more aspects of the present invention.